1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a golf ball bearing pastel-colored marks representing a brand name, a play number and the like printed thereon, which meets the recent demand for improved appearance and has superior mark visibility.
2. Description of the Related Art
A golf ball generally has printed marks representing a brand name, a play number and the like on a surface of their ball body. Such marks have heretofore been black-colored to contrast with white a ball body.
In recent years, however, golfers tend to prefer fashionable golf balls and, hence, it is desired that marks of a brand name and the like printed on the surface of their ball bodies be chromatic colored instead of being black or gold-colored. Among colors other than a black, pastel colors such as pink, orange, light blue and lemon are tended to be preferably employed comparing to the primary colors such as red and blue.
As an example of a mark with improved appearance, a mark having metallic luster printed with use of a metal powder-containing ink has been proposed (refer to Japanese Patent Laid-Open Gazette No. HEI 11-114093). Addition of metal powder to an ink, however, causes the adherence of the ink to a golf ball body surface to lower, thus resulting in a problematic mark easy to peel off.
Golf balls generally bear parallel-printed marks including a brand name mark and a play number mark for distinction of each ball.
The play number is a numeral or the like which is printed on a ball body separately from a brand name in order to identify the ball thereby allowing golfers playing together to distinguish their respective balls from each other even if the balls used by them are of the same sort. A commercially-available one-dozen golf ball carton, for example, contains four groups of golf balls bearing four printed play numbers 1, 3, 5 and 7, respectively, each group consisting of three balls. If there are plural golfers using golf balls of the same brand name and of the same type among golfers playing together, use of balls with different play numbers by such golfers allows the golfers to distinguish their own balls from each other.
In view of such a role of a play number, the play number is usually colored different from a brand name printed at a location close to the play number so that the play number can be easily distinguished from the brand name. For instance, the brand name is printed with a blue ink, while the play number printed with a red ink, whereby both the marks are made highly visible.
However, a combination of opposite primary colors such as a combination of red and blue, together with the strength of such primary colors, imparts a sensation of garishness to the golfer and hence is not preferred by recent golfers having a preference for improved appearance of golf balls.
In the case where the marks are formed using pastel color inks having good visibility to satisfy the demand for improved appearance, the lightness of such pastel colors in combination with the whiteness of the ball body may make the marks themselves less visible or may make distinction between the brand name and the play number difficult.
The present invention relates to a highly fashionable golf ball bearing a brand name mark and a play number mark, and satisfying a demand for an improved appearance without impairing superior visibility of these marks.
A golf ball of the present invention comprises a ball body, and a first mark and a second mark printed on the ball body, wherein the first mark and the second mark have similar colors and a CIE L*a*b* color difference (xcex94E) between the color of the first mark and the color of the second mark is in the range of 5 to 50.